Blogs

What is sexism? The dictionary defines sexism as " prejudice, stereotyping or discrimination on the basis of gender". No, sexism is not just believing women are better than men or men are better than women. It goes much deeper than that and believe me or not, it is your problem.

Are you thinking about doing some human rights education with others? Or do you want to have a grounding knowledge in human rights to be able to chat – or argue- with friends and colleagues. Here is a human rights guide in a nutshell, contributed by Stephanie Hanlon

"Pie ball", "Pikey", "Knacker", "Gypo". A beautiful collection of words aren't they? Words that carry connotations now well beyond what they used to mean in general Irish society. They've become ingrained in our vocabulary over the past few years by way of describing a certain cohort of society, not dissimilar to the intentions of words such as "faggot" or "dyke". All of the above are words used, intentionally or otherwise, to demean or belittle a person.

While our strongest message has been to stand up to hate speech that you see, especially as a bystander, and also to report hate speech there is also the issue of looking at how people build and have resilience when they are the target of hate speech. This blog is a personal story of finding the resilience to survive hate speech.

Recently, both globally and across Europe, the concept of free speech seems to be a hot topic. I understand that a person has a right to free speech, but they do not have the right not to be challenged on this when it is deemed to be oppressive or discriminatory in nature. This has in turn given me food for thought, when does free speech become hate speech? And is the regulation of this type of speech an infringement upon our human rights?

Every action has a consequence. Be it you sleeping in those extra five minutes, and then missing the train, or you calling someone a fag and them going home feeling hurt. Hate Speech has many consequences, and understanding these effects leads to understanding why the No Hate Speech Movement is such an important movement.

We’ve all heard the argument that hate speech is free speech. Finding a person who hasn’t heard the argument of “by telling me not to be homophobic/racist/sexist you’re being oppressive" is quite difficult.